family news

 Joy's mother's funeral is over, and most of the visitors are going home. Joy had to supervise the wake and funeral, as the eldest in the family, so she has been staying at their farm for the last week.

But no rest for her: she had to lead a tour of local organic farms for two days, so she is in bed recovering.

the family plot is in the Visayas, but travel is still difficult due to covid, so they held the service at their farm and cremated them so that the family could have a memorial there near the house.

They both died within a few months of each other after being married over 60 years.

It is Holy week. and for the first time since the epidemic, the streets are alive with the sound of chanting.

this is the reciting/chanting of the Pabasa, a poem about the passion of Jesus. Sometimes this is done on one's property/home, but here, people often build small chapels in the street and the people take turns singing. They also have a larger group that sings at our local barangay chapel, and for them I usually give a small gift for them to buy food for the singers and those who come to pray.

This has not been done for two years, so even having one built in our area shows that they can't destroy the neighborhoods. Our niece usually constructed one up the street, but she's been in the USA with her daughter, a nurse, and hasn't been back since the epidemic started...

No, we don't have the crucifixions that make it into the headlines to be mocked. That is Pampanga, a different area.

but in traditional Catholicism, the reading of the passion is a way to identify our sufferings with that of Christ.

joey velasco

the local people have been suffering greatly from the unemployment/poverty from the shutdown more than the covid infection itself: and it's tag-init, hot season, and so we have had a couple of deaths of elders, plus sick kids with diarrhea or bronchitis infections.

But we have had several low pressure areas with heavy rain going through, mainly south of here with reports of severe flooding in some areas of the Visayas, but here in central Luzon the rain has been light: enough rain to make it hard to dry the recently harvested rice, but not enough rain to allow the almost ripe rice to finish ripening (and the irrigation has shut down due to low water levels). Sigh. So much for trying three crops a year or planting later in the season to spread out the planting/harvest because of lack of workers to hire.